KVE, Traditional Butchers Pork Scratchings Review

Bag Size:100 g

Reviewed28th September 2008

Purchased from:Free sample pack greatly appreciated

First off, let's mention the bag. Old school butchers apron style bag, which is rather refreshing in today's foil packed world,
Upon opening the bag there is a stale and fatty smell. Not an artificial smell, but naturally this way. Smell and taste do not have to go hand in hand as we have seen many times.
Lots and lots of pieces in this heavy bag, rather than 3 piglet size bits and not much else. Lots and lots of random shapes and sizes. The pieces are all pretty clean (what we mean by this is sometimes you get pieces covered in dust and bits from the bottom) and they are all generally a good similar size. A good size for this size of bag.
The pieces are rock hard but not splinteringly hard. A little dry like a Jacobs cracker. They are within their 'best before' date, but do seem a little past it.

The colour range is quite wide, but to the lighter end of the scale. Anaemic to normal but no dark or burnt ones. No hairs.
They don't really have much flavour (at least they haven't artificially added flavour like some do) and they are not very salty either.
The skin is surprisingly thin, but the fat is very thick. there are also some very meaty bits which is nice to see. The smaller pieces are generally less fatty and therefore nicer. 100g is a very large amount of scratchings, but the bag is not huge. It feels very heavy, in the way a rubber dinghy does, seemingly light when inflated, but heavy when rolled up.

Full marks for randomness of shapes and curliness. Absolutely NO flat pieces, they are all really curled up, nice. One thing though, because they are not flat, you can't bite a bit off if the piece is a biggun. You have to eat the whole piece in one go. Be brave.

They are not salty, which generally makes us able to get to the end of a big bag, which is good. Too much salt is really too much full stop. However this bag is not nice enough to make me want to eat the whole bag, maybe I'm getting old? I think the bag should be smaller and saltier. This does however raise the possibility that this is the technique inferior brands use, hitting us with salty poor scratchings which we accept because of the small bags!

At the bottom, there are a few small bits, no dust, and saltier that the rest of the bag, therefore a good finalé.